Yogurt Pancakes

Like silly putty, this recipe was stumbled upon completely by accident. Like America, I'm sure someone else had stumbled upon it first.

I wanted pancakes, but didn't have milk (be it cow, nut, grain, or bean) or eggs, and I was in a fluffy mood. I cast about the refrigerator and paused when I saw the yogurt. Yogurt: kind of like eggs and milk mixed together, right?

Wrong. It's better. These pancakes were so light and fluffy that I had to tether them down. I'd previously thought that MB's beaten egg white pancakes were the fluffiest, but these have those beat. Yes, these beat Bitten's beaten ones.

Sure they were poofy, but were they also moist? As moist as the day is long, and I'm not talking about the day of the winter solstice. I'm talking about about that sprawling summer solstice day. In other words, they were extremely moist. The yogurt also imparted a pleasant, savory tang.

On Sunday I skated across Walden Pond and found myself on top of a body of water I had only previously been in or under. The yogurt must have had the reverse experience when mixed into the pancakes. Used to sliding around on top, it suddenly found itself deep within them.

The only downside is that the cooking process probably nullifies the probiotic content of the yogurt. But you know the old saying: you've got to break a few billion bacteria to make pancakes.

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Recipe: Yogurt Pancakes

1 cup mixed whole grain flours (I used barley, spelt and corn)
1 cup plain yogurt (or whatever it takes to look like pancake batter)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

Gently mix all of the above, leaving it lumpy. Marvel at its fluffy nature.

Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased skillet (I used a non-stick pan, no oil at all, and they really didn't stick.) Once bubbling, flip, cook briefly on the B-side, and cook again until golden.

Mourn bacteria.

Kimchee Pancake

In damp, cold, snowy weather, a hot, crusty, kimchee pancake seems like the perfect food. It also makes sense seasonally, since this is the time of year when fermented veggies are the only kind available, excluding root vegetables and Chilean green beans.

A pajeon is also a good way to use up kimchee if you've got more than you can handle. I've started buying mine at Little Pusan, our local Korean restaurant and home of the best food in town. When I realized that they sold their excellent homemade kimchee in bulk, I had the following conversation with the owner, a charmingly opinionated woman:

Me: What size does the kimchee come in?
Her: Eight-fifty, six dollar, twelve.
Me: I'll take an eight-fifty.
(She disappears into the kitchen, returning with a five pound jar.)
Me: Whoah, that's a lot of kimchee!
Her: Not a lot.
Me: How long will it last?
Her: (Huff!) Three month. Six month.

It lasted me about one month, which helps me structure my visits to the restaurant. I always want to eat there, but don't want to get to a place where I lose interest or take it for granted. But now when the jar runs out, I know that it's time to go back for a meal and a reload.

I'd include my recipe but it's not quite there yet. I basically mixed kimchee with an egg and enough flour to bind, then fried it in hot oil. That wasn't bad, but see Wandering Chopsticks for a little more precision.

Failed Apple Pancake

Cocaine isn't the only fine, white powder you can get addicted to for a quick fix. There's also baking powder.

Ever since reading the Bitten post on pancakes made with yeast, I've been thinking as baking powder as nothing but a cheap shortcut. I mean what is that stuff anyway?

The trouble with making yeast pancakes, which would be a terribly unappetizing name for them, is that they require an ounce of forethought, which is not something that comes into play when making pancakes. In fact it's hard to think of something I think less about than prepping pancakes.

I decided to amp up the already awesome "specialty flour" pancakes we've been making, and the somewhat mealy apples we have on hand seemed like just the ticket. A bad apple may spoil the bunch, but a bad eating apple can be a great one for cooking.

Unfortunately, apple power was not enough to save these awful pancakes. Believe it or not, throwing a bunch of kinds of flour together with yeast and not waiting for long enough actually doesn't result in something you want to eat. I made the batter too thin, didn't give it time to rise and didn't count on the yeast tasting so... yeasty. It was almost impossible to get the things to cook through and they tasted neither sweet nor savory, just bad.

The worst part was after I had made the first one, choked it down, and then realized that there was plenty of batter left over. I went ahead and made and ate the rest of the batch, as penance.

Still, the apples look nice, don't they?

The Last Breakfast I'll Ever Eat Without Knowing Who the Next President Will Be

Despite offers of free ice cream and coffee, when I woke up today my mind was, for once, not on food. I was just too nervous/excited (McCain/Obama) to eat.

I sat down with every intention of doing work, but instead found myself maniacally searching the internet for short news clips about voter turnout. Unable to work, I made pancakes. I know I said I didn't feel like eating, but pancakes are really more of an activity than a meal.

Glad to be away from the internet, I assembled a stack of what we've been calling "specialty flour" pancakes. They're a blend of buckwheat, spelt, and corn meal, and as you feel the flour power coursing through you (and the milk, eggs, and butter), you can tell that you're getting a lot more bang for your buck(wheat) than if you just used white wheat flour. (Looking back on that sentence I feel the need to say that it was not a subliminal commentary about the two candidates.)

I sat down and ate as many as I could, smothering each cake with peanut butter and a delicately spiced pear butter we received in exchange for dog sitting. Hopefully this will keep me going until deep in the night, when we find out who the next president will be. Despite countless other reasons, for food's sake, I hope it's Obama.

Now if you haven't done so already, make yourself some pancakes and get out there and vote.

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Pancakes for a Brighter Future

adapted from the More-With-Less Cookbook

1 cup milk
2 tbsp oil
1 egg

Add and mix only until moistened.

1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Heat butter in a skillet. Pour pools of batter into the hot skillet in the size you desire (it's fun to have a mound of little ones). Once bubbling, flip, cook briefly on the B side, and serve smeared generously with peanut butter and pear butter. Pray for change.

The Crepe, Unfolded

I used to think of crepes as delicate and highly civilized fare, the kind of food that could only be made with specialty equipment or by someone who owns more than one house. But it turns out that they're basically pancakes with an intimidating name.

Lately I've been whipping up crepes as quickly and thoughtlessly as I blow my nose, which I've also been doing doing a lot of given that New England hasn't had a worse allergy season in seventeen years. Luckily for guests, I don't do both at the same time.

A crepe really is just a thin pancake, yet it has the power to transform simple ingredients into a satisfying one dish breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. You can fill them with almost anything you have on hand, especially small bits of precooked leftovers. For instance, if you have leftover steamed broccoli and you own a small amount of any kind of cheese, voila! Continental dining at its finest when you probably thought you needed to go to the store to make dinner.

I've experimented with different liquids, flours and amounts of egg, and they're all fine. Once you get the basic idea you'll get a feel for the batter and be able to improvise in no time.

If only dust mites and pollen were so easily manipulated into something so beautiful and delicious.

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Easy Crepes

1 cup flour (I've been using spelt, wheat, or a combo)
1 egg (though 2 is better)
a pinch of salt
a dash of nutmeg (completely unnecessary)

Whisk the above ingredients together with enough water (or milk) to create a smooth batter that will easily pour.

Heat a non-stick pan lubricated with a small pad of butter (or oil). Skillets work fine but don't heat as evenly and require more fat.

Pour in a small amount of batter, and as it starts to set, spread the batter out doing that thing that people at crepe stands do, using your spatula. If you don't know what I mean, I'm sure you could find it on youtube.

Fill with whatever wasn't enough of a meal on its own. Some winning combos I've tried:

-leeks and scrambled eggs
-eggs, bacon, cheddar and steamed broccoli (pictured above and absolutely divine)
-ground beef and onion (basically my grandmother's blintzes)
-roasted eggplant and goat cheese

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A little etymology lesson, especially for you, Karen:

DERIVATIVES: adjective - "crepey"

ORIGIN: late 18th cent.: French, from Old French "crespe:" ‘curled, frizzed,’ from Latin "crispus."

Comfort Food

You know you like to cook when you find yourself using a hotel ice bucket for mixing pancake batter.

My last hotel room, at a Comfort Inn in Vermont, featured a kitchenette. Apparently that's French for "kitchen that isn't actually functional." Still, my traveling companions were excited by the prospect of me making them breakfast the next day. Since one is vegan and the other vegetarian, and since they were going to pay me, I accepted the challenge

When starting from zero, you realize just how many little supplies you're used to having on hand at home, like salt, or white truffle oil. I solved this problem by shopping in the bulk section of a natural foods store, where I could buy as much or as little buckwheat flour and maple syrup as I wanted. I also pared down the pancake to a lumber-jack style of simplicity, minus the beaver tail fat (not vegan). The other major challenge is adapting to an unfamiliar mis-en-place. Hence the ice bucket.

I must say that, despite these hurdles, I turned out a perfectly good and entirely vegan pancake breakfast from scratch. Sure the sausage tasted like sawdust, but that's Tofurky's fault, not mine.

Mark Bittman's 30 Minute Chicken Stuffed with Mark Bittman's Whole Grain Pancakes

I know it sounds strange, but bear with me. For breakfast I made Mark Bittman's "whole grain pancakes that you actually want to eat." For dinner, I tried his 30 minute, "fast" roast chicken. I wanted to stuff it with something, and as I looked around the kitchen, I noticed those leftover pancakes just sitting there... Cubed, they went right into the chicken.

For breakfast, the pancakes were every bit as pillowy and ethereal as MB promised. As stuffing, they were just as good. Since I'd used blue corn meal and whole wheat flour and hadn't used any sugar, it really wasn't any different from a cornbread stuffing. And the hint of cinnamon and allspice was nice and interesting.

However, the chicken itself was still as raw as sashimi. Yes, I got the skillet hot. No, I wasn't drinking cooking sherry. If anyone has done this with success, let me know, otherwise I'll assume that Mark's trying to food-poison us all. Not in the mood for chicken tartare, or for diarrhea, I turned the heat down and kept cooking it.


How did it turn out in the end? Not as "fast" as I'd hoped, but still so good that I couldn't snap a Rockwellesque picture of the whole bird before it was devoured.